


Modest in Temper

by Aly_H



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cousins, Cousins Trevelyan, Dancing, Family, Gen, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, other people's ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-09-07 04:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16846960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aly_H/pseuds/Aly_H
Summary: An AU where ajir's Vaxus Trevelyan and my Lark Trevelyan are cousins who both find their way into the Inquisition. The two get along well and are good friends.---These were originally posted on tumblr only, I'm now cross-posting them in order to preserve them and make them more readily accessible.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ajir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajir/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set circa 9:34 in Ostwick at one of their Great Aunt Lucille’s infamous parties.

Great Aunt Lucille was scowling in her direction as she tried to melt into the wall.

She didn’t understand why her mother got her passes to attend these parties. She was a _mage_ , she’d never have the suitors that her elder siblings did, she’d never marry, never have a family of her own. But then she was her _mother’s_ only child, so perhaps her attendance was necessary to remind the family that the late Lady Trevelyan was not the _only_ Lady Trevelyan, that Lark’s existence somehow proved the woman’s relevance with regards to the family.

Usually she hid behind Leo during these events (well Luke was even more preferred but since the Order had stationed him far away he no longer attended family events like this one) and could sometimes convince her brother to dance with her. She _liked_ dancing after all, but no one would ask to dance with Trevelyan matchstick.

Especially not after she’d accidentally dumped half a goblet of punch down the front of one of the Orlesian guests.

The memory of this unfortunate event coloring her cheeks almost as brightly as her hair at this point. Bright red hair was good for catching attention and she envied the brunette tones of her half-siblings.

Maker if they needed a Trevelyan mage here couldn’t they have asked _Val_? She didn’t know if her cousin was any better at these things than she was but right now she was willing to throw her to the wolves and go back to a cozy library.

Leo however had gotten distracted and was busily charming a young lady. He seemed quite happy flirting away, she didn’t want to begrudge him his fun but feeling lonely in a room full of people made it easy to feel bitter.

“Care to dance?” she nearly jumped out of her skin – too caught up in her thoughts to notice the approaching man.

“Vaxus!” she turned crimson again. Could she be more _awkward_? She was eighteen, the awkward really needed to stop _soon_. Preferably before she had as many gray hairs as the First Enchanter.

(Admittedly a few of those grey hairs came from the Trevelyan affinity for fire, but still.)

“Me!” he smiled back. “You okay there, Lark?”

“I…yeah,” she smiled, it was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t there to scold her. At least she was _pretty_ sure Vaxus wasn’t here to scold her for ruining the Duke of Mont Whatever’s clothes. Not with the big, friendly smile. He’d asked something before hadn’t he?

His eyes studied her for a moment – an echo of the thoughtful boy that she’d known before she’d gone to the Circle. Their branches of the family weren’t particularly close but she was close enough in age to the twins she’d spent time with them. Not very much but enough to sort of remember him as very kind.

“Come on, you wanted to dance, right?” he asked, offering her his hand. “I know I’m not Lucien or Leopold but you like me enough not to set me on fire, right, Cousin?”

“I’d be afraid of what Val would do to me when I got back to the Circle if I did that,” she pointed out, accepting the proffered hand. A proper smile had crept onto her face though she knew she probably should be attempting to look the part of the proper young Trevelyan lady, she couldn’t stop the grin.

Vaxus laughed, “I’m sure it’d be something terrible.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after the relocation to Skyhold by the Inquisition after they’ve begun to settle in and recover from Haven a little. Vaxus and Dorian are in the early stages of their romance. Lark and Cullen are also in the early stages of theirs'.

“You should talk to him,” her cousin smirked which was when she realized she’d trailed off mid-sentence while complaining about her trainer.

(It was like the creepiest Mortalitasi around had been selected to train her, and she was sincerely regretting not heeding Cassandra’s advice regarding avoiding the magical art. She’d been building up to seeing if she could beg Vaxus to ask the resident Tevinter necromancer to tutor her instead.)

Now though she blushed and looked back to where Cullen was running through a set of drills with his sword and shield on a dummy.

“Cullen!” Vaxus was suddenly calling, making her squawk and wave her arms at him trying to stop him from calling her Commander over.

The blond turned and smiled seeing them, before he approached them, sword lowered. “Inquisitor,” he greeted, his eyes lingering on her a little before he looked to the other: “Vaxus, did you need something?”

She was too busy blushing and plotting some vengeance on her cousin – _blast him_ – to notice that Cullen’s eyes stayed on her as he spoke, a soft little half-grin turning the corner of his mouth up. Vaxus noticed though.

“Want to spar?” he offered, big friendly grin in place. Dorian wasn’t around (that he knew of) so he didn’t need to show off. Getting Cullen to show off for Lark was perfectly doable, and he might even be able to get Dorian to kiss the bruises he was going to earn from it better, right?

“I wouldn’t mind the challenge,” Cullen agreed.

“Good! Lark can keep you company while I go get my gear,” he grinned before heading off to get said gear before the Inquisitor could protest.

“I, uh, nice weather for, um, weather, right?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian has a crush on her cousin and so Lark makes sure to tease her friend and nudge him in the direction of 'tell him how you feel'.

The Inquisitor’s shoulder bumped into his arm as she leaned against him to get a better view of where his eyes were. In Skyhold the red head had at least left her armor off – the heavy warrior-like uniform that the Herald had adopted since becoming Inquisitor made her look more intimidating than she was. Thankfully.

“There’s a perfectly good chair there if you’re tired, Inquisitor,” he said, smiling as he adopted one of his haughty Tevinter tones.

“I was just curious if you’d been standing at this same book shelf for half an hour for a _reason_ ,” she smirked. “Especially since there’s a perfectly good chair there, Dorian.”

Half an hour? Had it really been so long?

He remembered greeting the Inquisitor as she trudged up the stairs to talk with Leliana, and the red head was back now which meant she was done with the spymaster. And he could see in those bright violet eyes that the younger mage knew _exactly_ why he’d been standing there all that time pretending to be completely absorbed in his examination of the books on the shelf in front of him.

The Trevelyan genes, he decided meeting her gaze, carried both good looks and devious turns to their humor.

It’d been the second of the Inquisition’s Trevelyans (and the less famous – infamous? – one) that had held his attention for so long.

Vaxus Trevelyan was a warrior, sure, but he was as frequent a visitor to the library as any of the mages. More frequent than Lark who seemed keenly interested in avoiding books in general, actually. The handsome Marcher was currently preoccupied with a book in hand as he occupied one of the library’s chairs that wasn’t located in the alcove Dorian had claimed as his own.

Lark hummed in thought before nodding, “You know, if you ask nicely I’m sure Vax would let you sit on his lap? Especially since you seem rather interested in that spot.”

Dorian flushed and scowled slightly, “Do you have nothing more Inquisitorial than teasing me to do?”

“Nope. So why _don’t_ you talk to him?”

“He…” the subject in question’s grey eyes had lifted off the book to notice the pair watching him and waved back when Lark waved at him in greeting. “His attentions are quite occupied with looking for your cousin.”

Lark’s grin disappeared into a worried frown, “I’m worried about him, Dorian. Leliana’s people are looking for Val, but there’s not really anything Vax can do until they have word.”

Dorian had been there when they’d met Vaxus, seen the way that the warrior’s face had fallen when he’d realized that the rumored Herald, though a Trevelyan mage from the Ostwick Circle, was not the Trevelyan mage he was looking for but a younger cousin from a different branch of the family.

“In the mean time you throw your beloved cousin to the evil Tevinter magister?”

“You’re not evil or a magister,” she snorted. “And he smiles more around you, and you smile more with him too.”

“I happen to be a very charming person, I’ll have you know,” he informed her.

“Mhmm, is that why he finds your lips enchanting enough to stare at them all the time?”

Dorian felt his cheeks heat a little, it was time to get the Inquisitor off this particular topic, he decided – and perhaps think on the implications of what she’d said regarding the other Marcher later, preferably with a bottle of wine to help his mulling:

“Have you mastered your barrier spell yet, or are they still collapsing at the first strike?”

“You know what, I think it’s about time I take Varric up on his offer to teach me Wicked Grace,” she decided, as if it had nothing to do with a sudden desire to avoid spending an hour having fireballs thrown at her in magical combat practice.

Which was fine, convincing her to flee was his primary goal.

With her gone he looked up to meet the grey eyes that were still watching him, Vaxus’s face a little puzzled. He smiled to the Marcher before quickly grabbing a book he’d already read at least twice and retreating to his little alcove.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was written for the prompt "You were meant to be watching him!”

“You were meant to be watching him!” Vaxus exclaimed, eyes widening as he saw that Dorian wasn’t resting in his tent and recovering as he was meant to be but instead had fallen asleep huddled by the fire.

Magic and healing potions could only did so much and Dorian needed rest - proper rest, not this.

They were in one of the Inquisition’s small camps amongst the ruins of the Dales long since overgrown by the forests of the Emerald Graves. It was exploring near this particular stretch of the Orlesian countryside that they’d received the unpleasant surprise of wandering giants.

It had been then that Dorian was hurt.

Vaxus hadn’t seen the signs or realized the danger quickly enough…it was his fault.

Beside Dorian, her eyes fixed on the text Way of the Necromancer, was Vaxus’s younger cousin. The pyromancer had been left in charge of looking after Dorian, she and the altus were fast friends and frequent coconspirators in Skyhold.

Now violet eyes glanced over to Dorian and she frowned some seeing that he’d drifted off where he was propped up.

“He kept trying to go look for you,” she muttered a little defensively as she reached over to adjust the oversized cloak that the other mage was wrapped up in so it wouldn’t fall from his shoulder. “Waiting here for you was the only way he’d stay put at all.”

Vaxus flinched a little under the pyromancer’s gaze. Her lips were pursed tightly as she studied him.

Lark was a year younger. And he still remembered the little girl who had tagged after him and Val when her own brothers were too busy to play. He vaguely wondered if she had lost the naive edge to her gaze before the Circles fell or if that attentiveness had been born from protecting her fellow mages during the war.

Vaxus had left the camp. Driven from Dorian’s side by his own guilt. He couldn’t sit there and watch that potion-induced stillness and the ashen color beneath his lover’s skin.

He had nearly lost Dorian.

To something so simple as a foolish mistake and bad luck.

Vax hadn’t been able to stay.

Not when he was to blame for this.

He could see the way his cousin debated scolding him or prying to see if he was okay in her eyes. Instead, she shook her head slightly and sighed.

With a gentle hand on his shoulder she stirred Dorian from his rest, “Hey, he’s back now. See? Perfectly safe.”

Dorian blinked sluggishly at first before spotting Vax standing at the edge of the firelight.

The worried lines around storm colored eyes softened and some of that tension bled from tightly wound shoulders.

“Amatus,” he smiled a little in greeting.

Too tired for more, and likely the offended scolding for making him worry held off by the potions still.

Vax smiled back - he couldn’t let Dorian worry more.

His cousin stood after tucking a letter soft-edged with rereading into her book. She squeezed his arm as she stepped past Vax on her way to the tent she and Sera would be sharing that night.

“Goodnight you two.”


End file.
